Being couragous implies there is a risk to be taken.

When I was less experienced, internally I used to feel there is was risk when I was doing an approach.

Now I am experienced, I do not feel there is a risk. I am confident that I can handle any situation that arises when I am in a set.

So from what you're saying, I understand that you need courage as a beginner to gain the experience you need to be confident.

4 words will do as an instruction, sounds like this is the reasoning behind those 4 words.

CO, thanks for your "thinking out loud". You sure do think a lot!

Ultimately, the certainty that I'm referring is the feeling of certainty, which could easily be exchanged with the term assuredness. As in the definition, "A feeling of assurance, especially of self-assurance".

A feeling of self-assurance is lacking in an act of courage. You say that when you act with confidence you feel that you'll be able "to handle the result if it goes wrong", and when this is the case we usually have a feeling of assuredness or certainty.

When we don't have this feeling of assuredness because we are not sure that we'll be able to handle the result, then it takes courage to act.

As Zed clearly points out, courageousness involves taking a risk:

However, I would also go as far as to say that courage isn't simply something you need as a "beginner". There will always be situations that arise when interacting with women that involve risk, no matter how much experience you have.

Perhaps for some this is a matter of contention, but to me it is absolutely clear that the idea that you can feel assured in any and all situations that could possibly arise with any woman is a little conceited. In my experience, whenever I've believed in the thought that I feel confident in any and all situations with women, life has taught me that this is not the case by throwing up a new test. And then I must rely on courage.

As for the idea that this could have all been summed with the words "just get stuck in". Yep, in some ways true, but then we could pretty much some up the whole of seduction like that, take down this internet forum and forget about the whole thing. Sometimes a little elaboration is helpful!

*Sigh...*

Halcyon mate, I'm really sorry. But I've dropped right back from the world of pick up over the months precisely because of rubbish like this and the sheer amount of it which spawns forth from pick up 'gurus'. I've had major fallings out with other supposed 'gurus' in the world of pick up when I realised what bollocks they were talking and had the audacity to challenge them as opposed to taking their words as gospel. It surprised them because they didn't expect any challenge to what they were saying. Its the critical flaw of pick up as a body of reputable social science: the lack of rigorous review and challenge, and the fact that 'gurus' writings are held up as gospel so routinely.

And its put me right off the whole damned thing.

Mate, no-one else is having this debate. It isn't important. Just because you've written it down and you've got your own website doesn't make it important either.

But it isn't the subject or its terminally dubious validity which really gets my goat here, or the lack of real depth of thought which has gone into it, or even the ease with which what your saying can be knocked to pieces. Its more the fact that this is posited as an authoritative scripture. I don't know you, I don't know where you've been or where you've come from. But reading this, I really wouldn't take a blind bit of notice of you, because its rubbish.

And its more so the fact that this article suffers from the pick up industry's most frustrating, infuriating and downright ludicrous trait: that you've taken hundreds of words to say what could have been said in half a paragraph*, and that you've deliberately made something very simple extremely complicated in order to award it an air of authority and mystique that it simply doesn't merit. I've seen it all before. And its all bollocks. It really is.

Like I say, I don't know you. You're probably a decent lad, and maybe you are pretty good with girls. So fucking stop writing rubbish like this and go and enjoy your life! You're not helping anyone.

Really. You're not.




*Yes, I do appreciate the irony of making this statement in a post which is itself long. ish.

+1

********

To complete the thread's title for the OP...


"Better than confidence..."

...is getting kicked up the ass by CovertOperation!


* * *
"Just get stuck in", v appropriate, should be on mugs and T-shirts so noone forgets!

Confidence is usually the absence of fear.
Courage is what is necessary in the absence of confidence.

---

Welcome back to the forums CO.

My few, taking the right action and having the courage to do that will eventually lead to competence. Competence will bring you Confidence.

Confidence knowing you can do something well.

Courage giving something your best shot whether you feel perhaps scared of the situation.

frankly i find the whole concept of talking about courage in relation to chatting up girls a complete joke
My idea of courage is the guys that all hang off an apache gunship to fly into an afghan rebel base to retreive a confirmed dead comrade -- all putting themselves at massive risk just to retrieve a dead friend.

talking about courage in relation to pickup is a fucking joke

Yes definitely, in reality there is a wide spectrum of courage. You don't get a medal for talking to a girl. However to someone lacking the confidence there own ego may well make the fear seem very overwelming indeed.

Fuck me. Did Phil just give me a Thanks? World collapsing?